I’m usually more forgiving of the sins of older movies as I try to keep in mind the periods they were made and the attitudes and mindsets of the day. But the subject They Won’t Forget takes on and how it deals with it makes it ineligible for any license because of when it was made. This is probably the most disturbing movie I’ve seen in quite a while.
Lawrence of Arabia is the Icarus myth. A hero starts out at neither the bottom nor top but somewhere around the middle, perhaps a bit lower than that, then ascends. But he gets too close to the sun and falls. The movie looks at that, asks why and suggests the answer is the usual thing: hubris.
Relationships, sex, communists and, somewhere off camera ,World War II — The Male Animal from 1942 is a curious film to say the least. It comes with some pretty impressive credentials, however, including its stars as well as its origins: based on a play by James Thurber and a screenplay with writers that included the Epstein brothers.
I remember Elwy Yost quite vividly. I’m pretty sure he’s the only thing I ever watched on TVO with his Saturday Night at the Movies (1974 – 1999). I always thought he was too much of a nerd. He had a funny name. And he was so interested in those old movies …
I’ve twice seen the 1953 movie Dream Wife recently and have twice had the same the same response. It just isn’t a very good movie. Even stars like Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr can’t save it, though they do make it more palatable.
The series of Thin Man movies answers the question, “What does happily ever after look like?”
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